Climate Preparedness Report

Underlining Seattle’s Need to support climate resilience

Climate Preparedness Report, Seattle, Washington

Client:

City of Seattle’s Office of Sustainability & Environments

Size:

City-wide

Services:

Planning

Markets:

Parks & Civic, Planning & Urban Design

“While we must make concerted efforts to reduce GHG emissions, historic emissions have and will continue to impact the global climate. Flooding, heat waves, and extreme high tides are not new challenges in Seattle, and we have strategies for responding to them. However, climate change will shift the frequency, intensity, and timing of these events, and what we now consider an extreme event will become the new normal.”

GGLO was engaged by The City of Seattle’s Office of Sustainability and Environment to support climate resilience and preparedness planning related to land use. The “Climate Preparedness: a Mapping Inventory of Changing Coastal Flood Risk” report provides an inventory of specific critical areas, land uses, select transit infrastructure and planned investments, and communities at risk of flooding under future climate conditions. The findings of the study provide a screening tool for broadly assessing the impacts of sea level rise on Seattle.

The approach used in this study is a departure from those more commonly used. This study focuses on changes in the frequency and water levels associated with high tides and extreme storm events, rather than emphasizing the change in base sea level. The analysis projects water levels (+2, +3, +4, and +5 feet above average daily high tide) associated with different flood intervals between now, 2035 and 2060.